Sunday, August 31, 2008
Cloud Forest Coffee
Ever wonder where the coffee we bring home to Florida from Monteverde actually comes from? It grows on my friend Marta's farm and is harvested by hand every year in December and January as the green berries ripen into red berries. The coffee berries are then dried out in the sun, measured and bagged, usually in old feed bags. The measurement is a cajuela, and I'm not too sure how much that actually is - probably around 3 kilos.
After the coffee is dry, the husk of the berry has to be removed and separated from the coffee beans inside. The coffee beans are then roasted with a light or dark roast. We take the coffee to be processed in San Louis, where it loses about half its volume. Our friend Don Victor bags the coffee once it's roasted into 3 kilo bags, and then I repack it all to take it all home to Florida.
